Such is the competition at the top of the Championship this season the race for automatic promotion is likely to go to the final week of the season before matters are settled with anyone of four teams taking the automatic promotion spot.
In any other season Saints might have expected to cruise to automatic promotion having just put together a 22 game unbeaten run in the League, sitting with an average of 2.09 points per game so far, if that is maintained then they would be sitting on 96 points come the end of the season and that has been enough to win the division most seasons, let alone finish in second place.
But this is not any other season, the 2023/24 season has seen the division polarised more than any other year and Southampton, Leicester City, Leeds United & Ipswich Town have been far and away better than any of the other clubs in the division.
Indeed West Brom in 5th sit a whopping 14 points off Ipswich in 2nd place, it is a four horse race for the top two places.
There was hope it might reduce to a three horse contest as Ipswich faltered over the last month, but they have since shown that they are not done yet and are hanging on in 4th and are still in with a chance.
Before the weekend most would have seen Leicester as nailed on Champions, but if we can beat Hull On Tuesday then we will be just 8 points behind them, some would say that with only 14 games left that is going to be too big a deficit to cut back, but this is not any season.
But this could well be a pivotal week in the race for the top two spots, firstly we have to do our bit by beating Hull at St Mary’s on Tuesday, that will put us back into 2nd spot, a point above Leeds and as mentioned just 8 behind the Foxes.
On Friday comes the big game in the division of the weekend, Leeds host Leicester at Elland Road, now this is going to be a dilemma, on one hand if Leicester pull off a victory it will make catching them even harder as they will have run the clock down on another game, but on the other hand should we then beat Millwall at home, we would restore a 4 point cushion between ourselves and Leeds.
Ipswich are at home to Rotherham so you would assume that is a home banker and that would see Leeds clinging on to 3rd by goal difference.
A draw might well be the preferred result for Southampton fans, if we win our two home games this week then we would still be 3 points above Leeds, but Leicester’s lead over us will be cut to 6 and that is within catching distance and they would be starting to feel the pressure.
So far the top four teams have been almost relentless over the past months, but Leicester showed that they are not unbeatable by losing to mid table Middlesbrough.
But any Saints fan thinking that the rest of the season will be easy might well be getting a shock, this one is going to go right down to the wire and we have to play all of our 3 rivals on their own patch’s.
But Saints can do this, they showed that at West Brom in the way they bounced back after the defeat at Bristol City, most of the remaining games might well go to form for the top 4, but there has been some shocks every now and then as happened to us at Bristol and Leicester at home to Middlesbrough.